Golden Earring wrote: > I have two different digital versions of the (originally analogue) > recording "Blind Faith" album which Clapton & Baker made after the > demise of Cream, together with Steve Winwood (formerly of Traffic) & > Rick Grech (formerly of Family): one is a 16/44.1 "2001 remaster" with > bonus tracks, most of which are nothing special, and the other a 2014 > 24/192 "HDTracks" transfer of the original album tracks only. > > I popped the 2001 album on last night, but by the time I got to the 2nd > track "Can't Find My Way Home", I was thinking "I've heard it better > than this": I immediately switched to that same track on the 24/192 > effort (which of course only gets to my Transporter as 24/96) & sure > enough the percussion sounded much more dynamic, in particular the > "snap" on the snare drum & the clarity & decay extension on the cymbal > crashes. > > Accepting that the digital format itself ought not to be responsible for > this, what particular tricks could have been used by the re-mastering > engineer given that they must both have been produced from the same > analogue master tape (or an earlier digital transfer of it, it must be > getting a bit long in the tooth by now since I am - I have the original > release on vinyl, complete with its now totally inappropriate artwork)? > > I'm just curious how it is possible to manipulate quite specific parts > of a recording when you don't have a 48 (or more) digital multi-track > recording to use. The effect I'm describing is quite marked, to the > extent that I'm reasonably confident that anyone with access to these > two versions will hear it too. How many tracks would an analogue studio > master tape from 1969 actually have? > > Dave :)
Skipping over the fact that the well-known limitations of 1969 analog recording makes the claim of "high resolution" a blatant fraud, there also seems to misunderstand what remastering involves. Most significantly to the current question, it is not remixing. The technical quality of a 15 ips half-track master is audibly worse than the same material recorded from the same source at 44/16. Ideally, the recording was tracked digitally, and this was done fairly often but not universally for up to 10 years before the advent of the CD (1983). The starting point for any remastering was at best the original 2-track 15 ips mixdown master. It might have been even one of the later versions, such as the master tape used for creating the generation of master tapes that were sent off to the disk reproduction part of the process. In those days the process went something like this: Multitrack master -> Mixdown master -> Master tape for production -> one or more cutting masters -> cutting ->plating -> pressing. Multiple cutting masters were often created when the disc was simultaneously pressed at a number of different pressing plants. Usually there were different masters for different major markets such as UK/Europe versus USA. I had the good fortune to be a guest of Uncle Sam in Germany during the late 1960s and was able to enjoy the generally superior mastering and pressing work that was done over there. I had US and UK/German versions of about 100 disks, and in general they sounded different. Usually better mastering and less compression on the UK/European versions. The pressing quality for European releases was also generally far better. They were also sold in the US by specialty stores at elevated prices. Even the jackets were better produced. There are very few extant known examples of remixing. One related to an assortment of Elton John tracks. Remixing can involve serious work. Remastering is always simpler and often involves as little as rerecording with additional equalization, IOW new baked-in tone control settings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ arnyk's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=64365 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=106519 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
